Anise

I drive. In the dark.

The glass is drying. The car is warm. I would like to take off my jacket, but I can't. I should stop, but I don't want to. While I drive, I get lost in thought. You come to mind.

I don't know if I should wait until Friday to think of you. That would be premature. I should wait a couple of days. An endless torture. Waiting days. Not writing. A great exercise for me. Terrible. Words bounce around in my head, asking to be released. It's not easy to hold them back. I stifle them. I lose them. So now I write. I do it to remember some of them. To remember something I want to tell you. No, I'm not driving right now. That's why I've slowed down. I think back to what I was thinking about. I see the darkness and feel the cold. I think about your ability to read these lines without embarrassment. My fear of seeing you read them. Your face a bit closer. Your eyes scanning the lines. Small. The smile resting occasionally on some words. Me repeating to myself that everything is fine. I know I'll feel bad after the call. I know I'll use lines like these once again to empty myself.

To vomit the cold and all that thick color in my mind.

But you are not alive. You are not here.

I can walk away from the screen and look from a distance. You back there, facing a red wall. While I wait for you to finish. And I keep telling myself that everything is fine. Quick time before a long wait. Time that burns before a long emptiness. I brush against your image. I resist the temptation to write to you. I keep you suspended. An image of you in my mind. Your madness poorly hidden. At least to my eyes. Behind the need for certainty, the desire to get lost. Still in your room.

Here I am in the yard alone playing ball. On the wall where it hits, I've drawn your face. I made it smile. I drew it with chalk. And now all those lines are blurred. From down here, I look towards your room. I don’t know how you are. I don’t know if you’ve felt lonely. Maybe while I write this word. Right now. You could simply be empty. Still reading something. Annoyed at the thought of someone passing by you. Annoyed at the thought of someone writing to you. Bored with what you’re doing. Happy to have free time to dedicate to yourself. Distant from the noises of the stairs leading here to the yard. You might be playing with an idea or walking distractedly. The car keys. The sound of the refrigerator door. The smell of an unmade bed. The rough skin of a kiwi.

You say you don't agree. Every now and then. You say it, and I want to ask you. I want to understand what I've missed. But I forget to ask you. I get lost. I should ask you, and I write it down. I like the way you say it. Even at that moment, a door opens briefly. Keep it open. Tell me.

I think about what you might feel. Not now while you read these lines. Yes, even now. In both times. While I write and while you read. They would be two different emotions. I would have collected two. While you read, they would be one. Two colors that mix and form an indefinite blend. Contrasts of moments colliding.

I think about when you're listening to me, and your eyes become tiny or huge. When you lose touch with reality and start jumping in front of the screen. You move in a space that doesn't exist. And I watch without letting you notice. You smile and see a possible life. You smile, and the space is no longer around you. I watch, and you might not even stop. I see that space even if I don't know if it's the same one. For a brief moment, I'm inside it.

Inside there is light and darkness.

I see a bit of that light before it becomes a gallery. A mountain in the background for a brief moment. A flash. For a little while. Then I end up outside again. Brief moments of beauty outside of control. And I miss the darkness.

What I shelter from or what you hide from me. I wish you knew that it doesn’t scare me. I don’t know if it should. But I want to see it. I know that much. I wait for it. I didn’t know I could wait so long. It’s been years now. I wait. I will wait. Sitting down.

Beauty that I wish would crash down on me.

I feel it. I see it. I imagine it. I poke at it. I search and poke again. I follow its shape with my hand. I look for the spot to poke again. And in the meantime, I learn to wait. I adapt. I change. I would do anything to see it.

I think I'm afraid that you might completely withdraw. For now, I'm glad you can't silence the buzzing in your head. I wonder how many times you've looked into that noise. You must have done so. You don't tell me about it. But you must have done it. What did you see? I could think endlessly about what you must have seen. Maybe you didn't even look. No, you must have.

The desire for emptiness. The desire for the wave that overwhelms you. Just one more wave. Just one more wave. How many waves have you already ridden? And how many have overwhelmed you?

You are afraid. You are not. Not here and now. Really. When you are alone. What you read is a labyrinth. You don’t enter the labyrinth. You get lost in the labyrinth. You feel fear in the labyrinth. I remember the mirror maze when I was a child. I got lost and wished someone would take my hand and lead me out.

I like to think about what you find in the pages you read when I’m not there. What you see when you laugh and look around you. The life inside you. The noise of life making its way, and you can’t control it. You trying to frame it in something that gives you security. Life slipping through your fingers that cannot be gathered. Its seeds scattering in the wind and not returning. The wind that you cannot stop.

Long meetings. The subway. The scent before going out. The agenda. The ideas. The response that arrives. All those emotions you felt. All those you didn’t catch. All those smiles you saw. All those words pressed into those hours. A wandering mind. An opinion. About what? The new project. The six o'clock meeting. Dinner to prepare. The oven turned on. One hundred eighty degrees for twenty minutes. To be focused on. To be seared on both sides. Quick. Vinegar and sugar. A little bit. The smell that lingers in the kitchen.

The smell that goes around the house. The smell of parsley and cardamom. It gets caught in the curtains of the room. The windows wide open. The sound of distant cars. The pot sizzling and the small onions playing in the oil with the carrots and celery. The hair you haven't tied up. The head shaking them off. The smoke from the wine rising towards the eyes. The sweet smell that lingers and the salt. No. This time it's soy sauce. Soy sauce and the smell of broth. The smell of the past days that wouldn't go away.

The hair that is no longer smooth in front of the mirror. The eyes that no longer see.

And the room fills with tables and old furniture. The nose senses the color and smell of ceramics. The smell of oil and wax. The hardened color. The glues and the old sofa that you can't even sit on. The desire to get a new one. The one you saw and now can't afford. The paintings hung one on top of another. The space that is not enough. The time that is not enough. The defeats. The hope.

The smell of anise.